Ukraine Begins Putting Troops Under Its Flag

Launching the breakup of the world’s largest army, Ukraine officially began to transfer former Soviet soldiers on its territory to Ukrainian allegiance Friday, and neighboring Belarus declared that it, too, wants to take over troops stationed on its soil.

Both Ukraine and Belarus were moving to implement the agreement hammered out Monday by leaders of the new Commonwealth of Independent States, giving each member the right to its own armed forces.

Four commonwealth states now plan to establish independent armies, rather than to participate in combined forces. Tensions among commonwealth members appear to be growing over the issue of how to divide the 3.7 million troops in the armed forces that belonged to the former Soviet Union.

Ukrainian military leaders, apparently hoping to take over much of the equipment allotted to the estimated 1.3 million former Soviet troops on their territory, were pushing ahead even faster than expected, according to news reports from Kiev, the capital. Military personnel stationed there will be asked to swear allegiance to Ukraine by the month’s end.

The oath-taking ceremony “for most soldiers will take place on Jan. 5-6,” Central Television reported. “The officers will have their ceremonies two weeks later. This means that three military districts--Kiev, Odessa and Carpathia--will come under the yellow-and-blue (Ukrainian) flag by the end of January.”

Although only 40% of the troops stationed in Ukraine are ethnic Ukrainians, it was unclear whether the others--mostly Russians and Central Asians with no other ties to the now-independent state--would swear allegiance to it.

Ukrainian military officials have said that those who refuse to take the loyalty oath will be expected to serve in other states of the commonwealth.

But troops in the old Soviet Union’s strategic forces, which man the intercontinental ballistic missiles and other nuclear weapons there, will fall under joint commonwealth command and will be exempt from taking the Ukrainian oath.

Ukraine originally said it wanted an army of 420,000 but cut back its plans to 120,000 to 150,000, in part because Western governments complained that an army as large as the original would outnumber the German force and dangerously upset the European military balance.

Russian lawmakers have already protested reports that Ukraine has asked Black Sea fleet and air force officers to take Ukrainian oaths and to fly the Ukrainian flag, saying that such demands would violate the commonwealth agreements signed last month.

Vladimir Lukin, chairman of the Russian Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, asked with concern on Russian Television: “Do our friends in Ukraine realize that the vital interests of Russia are involved here? That this property had been created for centuries?” The Russian Parliament, he added, will not allow its interests to be hurt, even for the sake of maintaining harmony in the new commonwealth.

Russian Television also reported that Ukraine intends to take over the Black Sea fleet, a move that would certainly provoke more protests from Russia, which has its own historical claims to that naval force. Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin said this week that, since both Ukraine and Russia have legitimate rights to the fleet, it would be split somehow between them.

Sources at the former Soviet Defense Ministry, which is now shifting to its new role of coordinating the armed forces for the commonwealth, played down the possible conflicts that the Ukrainian military claims could incite. They noted that commonwealth leaders have agreed that the future of the former Soviet armed forces will be negotiated over the next two months.

But if the talks that Air Marshal Yevgeny I. Shaposhnikov--the commonwealth’s acting commander-in-chief and the former Soviet defense minister--held in Belarus on Friday were any indication, the splits and tensions among member states over the army’s fate will only deepen.

When commonwealth leaders met Monday in Minsk and agreed that strategic forces would come under a united command, three of the former Soviet republics--Ukraine, Moldova and Azerbaijan--said they would create their own conventional forces.

But on Friday, Belarussian military authorities firmly told Shaposhnikov, “The troops on the territory of the republic will, eventually, become Belarussian,” Central Television said.

Other republics may follow Belarus in demanding their own conventional forces, rather than joining the unified armed forces that commonwealth leaders said they would form.

Along with the tensions it raises, Ukraine may find that it cannot easily afford to maintain such a large army, Russian Television commented. “The means of control and command that remain from the Soviet army may be destroyed,” anchorman Yuri Rostov said. “To create new ones, Ukraine will need a lot of time and money. Because of these circumstances, the Ukrainian army may become a quite independent but rather uncontrollable force.”

Central Television expressed similar concern that the entire, massive army might now disintegrate chaotically. “Moldova and Azerbaijan have already refused to finance the strategic forces,” anchorwoman Irina Mishina said. “Will Belarus buy diesel fuel for its tanks at world prices? Will Moldovans start selling away the anti-aircraft artillery they have on their territory? Will neighbors start settling their relations with the help of the military might of the former Soviet army? There are more questions than answers.”

Despite such mounting worries, all reports confirmed that Ukraine still intends to destroy all of its tactical nuclear weapons by July and to be totally nuclear-free by the end of 1994.

In another sign of its insistence on acting independently, Ukraine introduced coupons on Friday that residents will receive in replacement of up to a quarter of their salaries to buy Ukrainian-made products, which will not be sold to non-residents.

The coupon system, also being introduced in Belarus, comes close to violating the republics’ agreement with Russia--which controls the commonwealth’s money supply--not to introduce their own currencies for now.

Across the three Slavic republics, where governments have lifted state controls on prices and allowed them to shoot upward, consumers found little more in the stores than usual Friday, and lines stretched as long as ever in most places. “The Prices Change but Nothing Changes on the Shelves,” a banner headline in the daily newspaper Izvestia read.

The tiny southwestern state of Moldova also freed most prices on Friday; three Central Asian republics, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, said they also would remove price ceilings within days.